He Who Holds Darkness
by Bobisanawesomename
Summary: In Annabeth's hometown of Burgess there lies the darkest of secrets; tied together by a family, a curse, and a grave. Annabeth soons finds that the her annoyingly normal life will be turned upside down, all because of the new boy with sea green eyes... AU. No demigods. 'Magic.'


**Chapter 1**

* * *

Annabeth hated Mondays.

They were always the same: wake up. Shower. Go to school. Nothing out of the ordinary every happened, which too many would seem almost like a relief – but not to Annabeth. She was different from all the other fake, blonde-haired idiots of this town, bragging about their latest manicure and/or pedicure and not having any original thought of their own. She wanted to go see the world; wanted to walk along the wall of china, wanted to gawk at the Arc De Triomphe, wanted to feel the cold wind of Alaska blowing in her face - not just staying in one place for the rest of her life.

Many thought it was a fool's dream (ironic, really, in the context) – believing that once you're in Burgess, you stay in Burgess. It was like her mother always said: "Those who want to stay in Burgess are damned people, Annabeth, damned people" - which she quickly found out to be true. It was unfortunate, yes, but the small town that hardly anybody knew about seemed to trap its inhabitants, making them never want to leave ever again. She would _not_ become one of those people.

Sighing, Annabeth got out of bed. Her little rant about Burgess would have to be left for another day (which usually meant the next day.) Walking across her overly large bedroom and into her bathroom, she began to get ready for school.

While she hated Mondays and the painful boredom it promised, and despised all the girls who only tried at school to look their best, she still didn't want to look like she'd just gotten out of bed – which she had. Getting into the shower, she let the warm water wash away the last of her dreariness as it shot out of the shower head.

After about ten minutes, she decided that the water had done its job. Grabbing a towel, she dried herself off, wrapping the towel tightly around her chest and torso once done. She then walked back into her room, heading straight towards the wardrobe. Donning a simple white shirt with an owl printed on the front, and dark washed jeans, Annabeth made her way to the front door, not bothering to have breakfast as it would mean further confrontation with her family.

The cold morning air of Burgess hit Annabeth like a wall, making her blink several times in rapid succession. Shutting the door, she made her way across the patio and waited, already spotting the black convertible rolling down the street.

There's a storm coming, Annabeth thought absent-mindedly, looking at the coal-black clouds hanging low in the sky. It wasn't rare to have thunderstorms in Burgess. Particularly bad weather would leave many homes without electricity, including her own.

By that time, the car had rolled to a stopped in front of Annabeth, and, without hesitation, she turned and got in. Greeted by the familiar warmth of the car, Annabeth turned toward one of her few friends in Burgess, Thalia. Cross between a punk and a goth, Thalia looked like she'd tear anyone apart with her bright electric blue eyes and pixie cut black hair. Beautiful in a terrifying way, she'd obliterate you with her continuous rally of verbal abuse or her painful punches and kicks. It truly was incredible that these two were actually friends, what with her being a bookworm with the annoying curly blonde hair and dull grey eyes, and her being a terrifying goddess cladded in black and 'death to Barbie' shirts.

"Honestly, it's a surprise that you've still got flesh on those bones of yours, Annabeth, what with the amount of breakfast's you miss every week." Thalia said in greeting, once she got settled in.

"You know that I don't like eating with my family, especially after dad's had one of his …ah … _Moments_." placing her bag on the floor, she took out the first book she could find. It was a well-known fact around town that Annabeth's dad was a famous inventor. What wasn't as well-known was that if one of his inventions didn't work, he'd quite literally trash the place, something that had quickly become known as "moments".

It surprised Annabeth to this day that no-one apart from her and a few close family friends (A.K.A. neighbors and any unfortunate bystanders at the time.) After all, Burgess was a small town – large enough that no-one person knew everyone, but small enough that any noteworthy gossip would pass like wildfire in a forest – and this type of information would spread particularly badly. _It's not like it happens very often,_ her step-mother would say, _only when he's particularly tired._

"Well good, 'cause I got you some food from Sandy's for you." Thalia said, nodding towards a greasy bag wedged between the seat and a level that did who-knows-what.

"_Great_," Annabeth muttered, "now I can die of food poisoning instead of starvation - _joy_." It seemed as though Thalia heard her, as she barked out a laugh.

"Well at least then you can blame someone else for your death!"

"How would I be able to blame anyone for my death – I'll be dead!" Thalia laughed again, before turning on the radio. Thinking it was the end of the conversation; Annabeth opened up her book – the Great Gatsby – to the correct page and began reading.

Before she could read more than a word, however, Thalia spoke up again. "Did you hear about the new kid?" She asked, turning her head slightly in Annabeth's direction, though kept her her eyes peeled on the road, "I heard from Rachel that the guys apart of the Jackson family – out of town or something so he's attending school."

Annabeth frowned, but nodded all the same. Living in the secluded evergreen forests next to Burgess, the Jackson's were the living legends of the town. No-one saw them. No-one talked to them. No-one even knows the last time they've been spotted in town! Owning most of the forest and the lakes that both surrounded Burgess meant that they were pretty well off. And like common folk will do, they decided that the Jackson's should be hated for their solitude and wealth. _Loathed_ would be a better term.

"I thought that they hadn't been spotted in years? I didn't even know that they had a son!"

Thalia nodded in agreement, "Nor did anyone else; the committee's been whining about it ever since they found out he's a Jackson. I mean, what does it matters that he's a Jackson! He's still a person, can still breath and all that – so what if his families a bit socially awkward and has small metal issues? Doesn't mean he's any less of a person than any of us. Hell, he'd still be more human than half the school is!" Annabeth laughed slightly at the last bit, knowing that by now, all the girls in their year were ¾ plastic and ¼ human.

Silence followed again, and like before it was broken by Thalia wondering whether they new guy would be hot or not. Annabeth sighed, quickly putting the book back in her bag, knowing that there was no point in having it out any more. "I have no idea" She replied - which was true; she'd only heard about the new student recently, having only known once their teacher announced it to the entire class.

Thalia sighed - of course she wouldn't know.

Looking up towards the sky, she wondered whether it was a coincidence that today of all days, a thunderstorm would hit Burgess. Thalia almost laughed at the thought; what was she suggesting? that the new guy could cause weather miracles? _It's probably just a coincidence,_ Thalia told herself,_ nothing to be worried about_. But even as she try to comfort herself, the nagging thought stayed at the back of her brain.

As the duo got out of the car, they were greeted with the sound of thunder booming and rain falling from the sky. Both Annabeth and Thalia were quickly drenched, though neither one cared about such quaint things, instead deciding to talk about what they were going to do when they were older (something they also similarly shared: both of them wanted out of Burgess) - Both ignoring the disdainful looks being sent their way

* * *

Burgess high school was one of the "newer" buildings in the town, having been extended throughout the last summer holiday to "provide decent resources to both the staff the students."

That's why Burgess high looked so strange.

On one hand, the hallways were always dirty and unkempt, with the lockers lined up in uneven stacks across the walls. Some would have dents in them, usually from bad fights that broke out in said hallways, whilst others would be graffiti'ed to the point where the average blue could no longer be seen. The classroom's however, would be clean and orderly, with stacks of book next to the doors and (in most) entire sides dedicated to windows - because _that_ wouldn't be annoying in the summer.

Annabeth sighed, thankful that school was an escape from the over repressing viewpoint of her stepmother, even if it was boring as hell.

You see, growing up in Burgess, Annabeth could see the feud between religion and science in this town like no other. Half the town - the religious side - believed that every child should go to church on a sunday, that every child should pray daily, that every child should believe in God and follow the Church ("his will" they called it.) The other side - the scientific side - simply believed that everything had a reason, and that everything could be explained. She liked school because almost all the teachers were on the scientific side of things, meaning it was an escape from the stepmother's biased point of view (not that she hated her, of course, its just a little annoying when you try to do homework and your mother's preaching about God in your ear.)

The feud seem to particularly spike when it involved the Jackson's, the so called "Satan worshippers" of the town. Sufficed to say that all religious people absolutely loathed the Jackson's, whilst the scientist's only held extreme envy and mild disdain towards them.

Annabeth thought about how thankful she was that Thalia and herself were in the same homeroom as they walked to class. It make things a lot less awkward than last year, when she'd sit by herself at the back, all by herself. At least with Thalia, she could act as if she wasn't a complete loner and not have to face the degrading looks of her peers alone.

So sitting at the back, Annabeth took out her iPod and put in the headphones (because this school doesn't care what you do, as long as you get good grades) and turned it on. Flipping through her playlist, she let her eyes idly search for some song that could possibly lift up this already depressing day. The playlist stopped on the "S" section of the playlist, showing only one song available to listen to– Seventeen Suns.

_That's funny; I swear that I had more than one song in the "s" section, especially a song I don't even know,_ Annabeth thought. Must be a pretty bad song for me to forget about it, she reasoned with herself, trying to swipe through the rest of her songs in search of her non-existent "feel good" song, only to find out her touch screen didn't budge.

Not even a little bit.

She frowned, trying again. Nothing happened. She tried again… and again… and again. Still, nothing happened. Her frowned deepened, causing Thalia to notice and look over in confusion.

"Hey, are you alright? You kind of look like you have constipation or something…" Thalia trailed off, waiting for a reply. She did, after a few seconds of thoughtful thinking.

"Yeah… It's just my IPod – its screens dama- Come on!_ Work you stupid thing!_" She growled, swiping with more vigor each time. Several students nearby looked over at the pair with confused expressions, thought the two were too caught up to notice.

"Okay, Okay, Annabeth - stop!" Thalia said, quickly laying her hand over Annabeth's to stop her from actually breaking the screen.

"It's obvious your IPod want you to listen to this song," Thalia's patronizing voice seemed to mock Annabeth, annoying her to no ends. Payback - Thalia love it.

"Shut up!" Annabeth growled, clearly losing her already lacking patience with the machinery. Thalia laughed again, asking whether she's tried turning it on and off again. Annabeth shot her an infuriated expression that said it all: _If you're not going to say something useful, then don't say anything AT ALL!_

Thalia laughed it off, though decided she'd had her fun for today; any more teasing and Annabeth wouldn't talk to her for the rest of the day.

"Look, why don't you just listen to the song? It's not like it's going to kill you or anything." Annabeth's blank expression was enough to secure Thalia's belief that even though she was one of the most intelligent people in the entire year, that she hadn't thought of the most obvious solution to her not very major problem.

"Yeah, guess you're right…" she heard her mumble after several seconds of silence, watching as she pressed on the song. Deciding that Thalia might as well do the homework for next lesson, she took out the work and began to solve it. Annabeth rested her head again the table, breathing softly through her nose - awaiting the song to begin playing.

Several seconds passed with nothing happening.

Then it began.

A single instrument signaled the beginning; quietly at first, barely audible, but just loud enough for Annabeth to distinguish it as a violin. Gradually the string noise began to get louder... and louder... and louder, with other instruments finding their way into the mix as well. She could make out the chill of a guitar, the peppiness of a flute, the booming of a drum - and various other instruments she didn't know the name of.

The music itself was actually surprisingly good - in a Gothic and extremely creepy way; seeming to have no definitive genre - not even gothic (if these even was a genre.) It was strange how much she enjoyed the song - maybe it was because the thought it was going to be terrible to begin with, or maybe it was actually _good_.

It was only later into the song that she realized that it wasn't drums that was making the booming noise - but instead thunder.

Once she figured it out, she was creeped out beyond belief - The thunder went perfectly with the song! That should physically not be possible! Its overly loud sound should definitely not be adding to the beat of the song!

_Boom! ... ... ... Boom! ... ... ... Boom! ... ... ... Boom!_

The logical side of her brain laughed the idea off as a trick of the mind -_ thunder being in time with a totally mundane song, preposterous! You know - KNOW - that something like this is completely improbable - so it most likely IS._ But the illogical par of her brain - the one that made her believe in the boogeyman until nine of age - was telling her to smash her iPod against a brick wall and run far, far away, preferably to a dark hole to spend the rest of her days. Because something like this should not be happening - _but is._

The was about to agree with the logical side - after all it's never let her down before (aside from that ONE question, but that aside the point) - until she heard the faint pitter-patter of rain coincide with the flute, and the howling of the wind coincide with the guitar. Now, this song was really starting to scare her. The thunder was a one time thing, something that shouldn't happen but could be written of as a natural miracle for some logical, once-in-a-millennia kind of thing.

She could convince herself of that.

What she couldn't convince herself was that _a thunderstorm was somehow playing along with a song on her iPod! _How the hell was she going to find a logical explanation for that!

_Okay, Annabeth, calm down... you've been under a lot of pressure lately: Schoolwork, Parents, Obnoxious neighbours... - that must be it! Your simply imagining this all up!... yeah! That make total sense! Unlike the alternative that is definitely NOT happening at the moment... definitely not..._

Deciding that that was definitely the cause of this strange miracle, she decided to listen on.

It truly was a mesmerizing song, even if it did send both her brain and her nerves to hell. About half way through, the rest of the instruments faded out, only leaving the violin left – much like the beginning. Only now Annabeth couldn't hear anything aside from the violin – not the pitter-patter of rain, nor the booming of thunder, nor the hushed conversations of the students around her.

Just the violin… And the voice.

Layered, yet distinctly feminine - like three women speaking at the same time:

_Seventeen suns and seventeen years,_

_Hearts that turn when death appears,_

_One will be dark and one will be light,_

_The moon shall rise in the dead of night._

She wanted to listen on, to hear the rest of the lyrics, but it was cut off by the abnormally loud ringing of the bell. "Argh!" she screamed, jerking wildly for not preparing for the bell to intervene.

She turned to look at Thalia, who had now stood up and was now looking at her with worried eyes. "Are you alright, Annabeth?" she asked, continuing to look at her even as she gathered her bag and stood up.

"Yeah," but she didn't feel alright, not in the slightest. It felt like she had lightning coursing through her veins, making her feel absolutely giddy. "Why?"

Thalia paused for a second as they left the classroom.

"Well, you were shaking and…" she began. Annabeth frowned, tuning Thalia out. She had been shaking? She hadn't realized that. _I wonder why?_ She thought, before scoffing slightly,_ of course i know why._

"… And you kind of look like you're going to chunder over everyone in sight." Annabeth looked up, letting out a quiet "huh?" making Thalia sigh – of course Annabeth would tune her out. This certainly wasn't the first time that Thalia would be talk or ranting about something and Annabeth would just completely ignore her - it happens quite often actually.

Shaking her Head, she muttered a quick goodbye before heading to her first lesson. Annabeth watched for a few seconds before she, too, headed towards her first class: History.

* * *

When Annabeth first signed up for History, she'd assumed that they be earning about history in general - The Cold War, Prohibition, the Romans et cetera, So when she found out that 1/2 of what they were going to be learning was just about Burgess in general, she kind of felt a little cheated. Sure, The briefing had said that most of the work would be based of Burgess and its "outstanding and overly helpful" history, but she thought it had been an exaggeration - it wasn't. Not in the slightest. Either way, she had to admit, it was phenomenally interesting when you look at it, but then again, she'd alway found any form of past artifacts interesting.

It helped that their teacher was good. Mr. Blofis was primarily an English teacher, however when the occasion stretched - as it had this year - he would also work as a History teacher. Whilst it was obvious to the "brighter" student that Mr. Blofis actually had no clue what they or he was talking about and that yes, he was just copying from the book, he managed to hide it very well with enthusiasm that would outlast any six year old on the planet and a optimistic outlook on life in general. That and several well placed jokes to lighten the mood.

As students sat down in their usual places Annabeth couldn't help but wonder about that song on her iPod - how did it get there? certainly she hadn't downloaded of the internet - that kind of music had never appealed to her before! Had her brothers installed it as a light-hearted joke? - sure they were known for their pranks and mischievous behavior, but if this kind of music could intimidate her - the fearless (aside from spiders, of course, she'd quite literally die before she touched one of them - probably from a heart attack) sister - then they'd probably pee their pants at the song.

Deciding to focus of the now and worry about the song later, Annabeth focused on Mr. Blofis, whom was standing at the front of the room, chalk in hand.

He smiled as everyone took out their notes, before beginning "today we shall be starting from where we left off, talking about the family feuds that cause Burgess to liter-" Mr blofis was cut of by three sharp raps to the door, causing everyone to stare at said door, including Mr Blofis, who looked surprised. Regaining his posture, he called out a quick "Come in!" causing the door to open.

Standing there was a young man - about sixteen or seventeen. He was tall and tan, with a lean, swimmer-like build and long arms that hung loosely by his side. Short raven black hair bordered his face, his fringe spike up messily via gel or some form of hair product, and stunning sea green eyes.

Donning a sky blue hoodie that was zipped up and padded at the elbows, along with dark washed jeans and simple black converses he was undoubtable the best looking dude she's ever seen in real life (and she's seen Jason!) The only problem was the look adoring his face: hollow - passive yet dangerous. His eyes held cruelty and pain and hurt within them.

His arrival spiked whispers and murmurs across the classroom. She managed to eavesdrop on some of them:  
"Damn, He's _hot_!"

"I bet he's gonna be a popular kid!"

"Damn I wished i looked like that!"

"He is so _mine_!"

She cringed at the last one... and the one before. Yes, he was attractive, but that didn't mean you needed to throw away yourself because of it. Who was he, anyway? Did anyone know? or were they just gawping at him?

It seemed as though Mr Blofis wanted to know these things as well, asking the boy for his name, to which he replied, his tone holding irritation and something else... anger, perhaps?

"Percy Jackson."

* * *

**Okay, so this is the first chapter had you not guessed (even labelled it for you guys), I'd enjoy reading any thing you guys want to say - excluding haters; thought constructive criticism is much obliged. I feel like i should warn you that i don't update very often from past fanfic that i've deleted, so bear with me! And to those of you who've read the caster chronicle - this will be based on that book series, though not enough for it to be a crossover (and i think you need characters from both sides for it to be a crossover - i'm not sure)**

**And sorry about the really shitty song lyrics and the summary, your gonna have to bear with me on those two.**

**And sorry to those who saw this before I deleted it - I was trying to upload the improved version but somehow (and I have absolutely no idea how) managed to delete it - had you not guessed I'm relatively new to the whole uploading thing.**

**Till next time (which'll be in like a millennia or so)**


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